Digital Storytelling

The Washington Post

 

Canary: The Washington Post Investigates

My role for Canary, The Washington Post’s first long-form investigative podcast was to design the landing page. In doing so, I hoped to mimic the powerful narrative and tone of the podcast itself. For this project, I was able to listen to the entirety of the podcast before its release.

One priority was making sure readers knew they were looking at an audio-first project. My design solution involved (1) incorporating a fixed navigation bar at the top of the page to highlight our three biggest partners: Apple Music, Spotify, and Stitcher; (2) giving the readers the opportunity to listen to the podcast and read their transcripts after the initial title scroll; and (3) placing "subscribe" buttons at the end of the page that link to different platforms where you can listen to the podcast.

I also wanted to incorporate short clips of the podcast on the page, so readers could preview what they'll hear in the full-length episodes. In pairing the women's voices with their portraits, my hope was that it would give a different but just as powerful effect that readers would get as if they were listening to the actual podcast. It was also an intentional decision to use audio clips of only the women.

This project was recognized with an Award of Excellence for story page design at SND's Best of Digital Design competition. 

You can read more about the process here

 

The Lost Local News Issue

In 2021, Washington Post Magazine published The Lost Local News Issue — the largest in the history of the Magazine — showing the impact of losing local journalism. My role in this project involved project managing, art direction, print design, and digital design. 

For this issue, we asked local journalists to tell severely underreported or entirely untold stories in places without a local newspaper. I collaborated with a developer on our team to come up with a digital landing page to showcase the pieces from the issue, incorporating visuals from each one. I came up with the CSS styling to make sure all the published pieces looked consistent, and came up with a custom setup of relinking the stories to each other. On the art direction side, I also recruited four artists to produce standalone illustrations, which were sprinkled throughout the landing page.

In the months leading up to production, I worked with the magazine staff to set deadlines for photo, copy, and illustration. This allowed me to manage my own time as I was able to design most of the print spreads and digital pieces, as well as delegate other work to my fellow designers. I also was in charge of booking the magazine and developing with stylized treatments for the opener spreads for features. 

You can read more about the process here

 

 

American Crossroads: The 2020 Photo Issue

I designed the digital presentation for Washington Post Magazine's 2020 Photo Issue. The special issue was a critical dispatch covering the three big stories for 2020 — the covid 19 pandemic, the  Black Lives Matter uprising, and the presidential election. In addition to the digital presentation, I also designed five of the four photo essays for print.

This project was recognized with an Award of Excellence for story page design at SND's Best of Digital Design competition.

 

Reclaiming One's Asian Name

I designed and art directed this personal essay in which the author discusses her journey of reclaiming her given Chinese name. I collaborated with a Chinese American illustrator to depict the author's name in Chinese calligraphy. For print, the Chinese characters were used on the cover as the byline. For the digital presentation, I imitated what I designed in print and used the characters as a prominent visual element and byline. I also wanted to make sure the willow tree was visually significant, since part of the author's Chinese name translates to "willow tree."

 

Ukraine in Pictures

Washington Post Magazine produced a special visual issue about the Ukrainian conflict comprised of three photo essays: (1) what came before the war and the situation leading up to it; (2) the grief surrounding a Ukrainian town as families claim and bury their dead; (3) a train ride from Ukraine to Poland as refugees make the journey to freedom, leaving behind their home country. I did the entirety of the digital design of this project, working closely with the photo editors to determine the project's photo edit and pacing.

This project was recognized with an Award of Excellence for photography design at SND's Best of Digital Design competition.

 

‘DNA Doesn’t Lie. People Lie.’

This story touches on the black-market baby trade in the 1950s, during which selling babies was not illegal in Quebec. A group of long lost siblings who found each other through DNA testing believe their father sold them into adoption to make extra money. I wanted to show a family tree, since these connections were so integral to the story. Using nested component elements in React, I designed a faux tree to show the family's lineage and included a hover function for each member of the family. (On mobile, the hover function disappears and the blurbs are listed alongside each headshot.)

 

Using Format